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University of Florida researchers have found that teaching fathers how to talk to and play with their autistic children in a home setting improved communication and increased the number of intelligible words the youngsters spoke by more than 50 percent and helped dads get more involved in their care.(Source: Nursing Research& Autism Society)

But the reality is that most fathers are often at a loss when it comes to what to do to help their child, and how to do it effectively.


This is often because mothers are the primary caretakers and usually the ones who attend the medical specialists and the support programs to get professional advice.

This means that mothers are feeling a huge amount of pressure about how to help their kids, and fathers are… well frankly, they just don’t know what to do…

Hi, I’m Steven. I have a nephew who has been diagnosed with Autism. I was in deep shock when I heard the news. In fact, I was downright devastated.

What made the situation worse was that my brother-in-law, also a good friend of mine was even more shocked and devastated. He saw his son as a little version of himself, his ‘mini-me’. When he saw his son was so different, it was like his mirror broke.

I want to ask you to stay to the very end of this; because your questions are going to be answered and you will be assured that you and your child can have a happy and fulfilling life.

But first, you need to understand that fathers play an important role in their child’s development.

Science Daily (www.sciencedaily.com) found more than 500 studies that suggest that a father’s love is one of the greatest influences on child’s development, particularly on children’s anxiety, hostility and aggressiveness toward others

I made this short to keep things simple and straight forward because delay is the worst enemy for your situation, here is why.

Most children are diagnosed when they are 2 year old or later. This is because children start showing signs of autism around that age. It becomes obvious that they are different. It seems the world gets more difficult for them to deal with.

That’s why children with autism need focused help to learn skills other children their age usually learn on their own. Those skills open the doors to their entire future.

Acting early increases these children’s potential significantly. This is the reason why delay is the worst enemy. It is extremely important to get your child on the right track as early as possible.

He was overwhelmed with many feelings: sadness, anger, confusion, guilt, fear, shame, and worry for the future

Today, 1 in 88 children has autism, and this figure keeps rising. (Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov) It’s a scary figure, but what’s even more scary is this.

Most parents will try to help them as much as they can, especially with communication, and hope that they can reduce their child’s issues with relating to the people around them.

What we found is that most therapies and support programs usually have the mothers involved. However, fathers have such a positive impact on language and symbolic play for children that they really need to be helping their kids with these skills.

Symbolic play is when children use one thing to represent something else in play. For example, a broom becomes a horse or a brush becomes a telephone.

A study from the U.S. Department of Education in 2001 found that highly involved biological fathers had children who were

It’s not that fathers are uninvolved, it’s just that the mothers are usually the ones that attend the programs and work with the kids as a result.

This can cause enormous stress for the family because the mothers feel pressure to do what they are told by professionals all by themselves. While the fathers are at loss at what to do.

Let me tell you that those fathers are usually very open to any suggestions to how they can be good fathers. It can just be harder for them to attend the programs with their kids.

What they want is to figure out how to be a good father for their autistic kids. Autism came without invitation, so they’ve never imagined what they would do in this situation. Sometimes what they need is a little help so that they can understand and support their children effectively.

Another study stated that involved fathers of children with disabilities increased the feeling of parental competence and marital satisfaction than fathers who are not as involved. (Source: Willoughby & Glidden 1995)

Having fathers involved not only increase their own feelings of self-worth as a parent but may also help their children have better life outcomes. (Source: Journal of intellectual disability research)

By their nature men want to fix problems. Even though there is no cure for Autism that is what they want to find.

There is no simple answer to what will work for your child, but you can read about what has worked for others. Then you can make your own decisions on what to do, let me explain…

Children with Autism have difficulty understanding language. The involvement of fathers is critical to help with this as fathers make such a big difference to their children’s language skills and also teach their kids symbolic play.

Fathers are often action-oriented, so they can channel this to have a positive impact on their children. Autism therapists help kids learn through the use of simple words, often with gestures. Having Dad play with the kids with lots of actions and gestures can really help.

There are a lot more studies that suggest that there are many other things that fathers can do for their kids to help them with their social and communication challenges.

To help these…

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